Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee
Meeting date: Wednesday, December 18, 2019
Official Report 618KB pdf
Contents
- Attendance
- Agriculture (Retained EU Law and Data) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 1
- Subordinate Legislation
Subordinate Legislation
Official Controls (Agriculture) (Scotland) Regulations 2019 (SSI 2019/419)
Item 2 is consideration of a statutory instrument under the negative procedure. I confirm to the committee that no motion to annul or representations have been received in relation to the instrument. Does anyone want to comment on it?
I am content with its contents. However, as I am a layperson, not a lawyer, I head straight to the explanatory note—I imagine that others do likewise—to understand what an instrument is about. This instrument, which contains 28 regulations, covers a wide range of issues. The explanatory note concludes by saying:
“A full impact assessment has not been produced for these Regulations as no, or no significant, impact on the private, voluntary or public sector is foreseen.”
I find that totally inadequate. It is almost as though the Government is hedging its bets. You either take the trouble to make an assessment, or an assessment is not required because it is not considered that there will be a significant impact. Is there any way to get a more comprehensive comment on the instrument, not least because we know that a considerable weight of secondary legislation is coming our way?
Should the committee agree to do so, I think that it would be entirely appropriate for us to write to the Government and say that statements such as the one in the explanatory note are not particularly helpful to our consideration of instruments.
I note that the instrument was laid on 3 December and came into force a couple of days ago, on 14 December. I appreciate that we have a letter from the Government explaining the rationale for that, but in light of our earlier conversation, perhaps we should highlight that, in normal circumstances, that approach would be unacceptable to us.
It appears that the committee considers it appropriate to write to the Government to ask it to clarify the situation and to make sure that when we consider future instruments, we have more information than has been given to us on this occasion. Does the committee agree to do that?
Members indicated agreement.
12:01 Meeting continued in private until 12:22.